13 Ways of Looking Through A Hawk's Eye
by afeverdream
Summary: "Have you ever had someone take your brain and play?" The dreams where tilting him into madness.


**So I've devloped a slight Hawkeye/Renner addiction. I'm very happy with this. I hope everyone likes, i'm at a bit of a block with my other two stories. Hopefully they'll be updated withing the next few week!**

**As usual I do not own The Avengers or characters within. All that belongs to Marvel/Disney/Joss Whendon and the actors who portray them. I'm just sneaking in and messing crap up.**

I

_His name was Clint. Clint Barton. Not Doyle._

He woke up sweating, body shaking. Haunting sounds of growls and rending flesh echoing in his ears. Cries of a name spilling from frantic lips as hands (so many many many clawing hands) grab at his clothing. Loose clothing, so much easier to snag and hold him back.

_Doyle_

He placed his head in his hands. The cold feeling of the sniper rifle still lingering. So frigid. Never warming up to him like his bow. The satisfying thrill of aiming and always hitting his target. Guns never felt right in his hands. Clint wondered if it was because of this dreaded feeling that haunted him why guns never felt right. Remorse was never a taste he wanted.

II

Sometimes when he walks through Manhattan Clint wonders. How would it look empty and sullen. Would he be a lone wander in a n echo of a great city, shadows of feral beasts following in the shadow, leering at each step he took trying not to bring attention to himself.

(Beasts with eyes full of blood and viruses. Colors that made him long to see that noxious green radiating out of Bruce's eyes. Sometimes in the heat of confrontation he double checked the doctor's eyes, made damn well sure his rage wasn't a prelude to twitches and convulsions spewing forth bile from his mouth.)

He'll stop and take breath, just to revel in the human cesspool around him. Tangible and not a valley of the dead filled with forgotten palaces and parliments.

III

Hawkeye. A call name he loathes and loves. But what exactly does he eye in the nests he's teased about. The end to the beginning or the start of the end, maybe it'll be in 28 days or 28 weeks or 28,000 years.

IV

The copter blades beat through the air. Clint flinches every time he hears the first whomp. In the back of his head he always remembers a promise. He always wonders if phantoms ever got to ride in one. One pair of mismatched eyes follow his own, trying to catch a glimpse of nightmare monsters .

Natasha has started to worry. He can trace each line of tense muscle straining in her uniform. Later he knows she'll ask him about it. Either over coffee or during combat training. As cold as she may seem, she is trying to be more human and if anything they're the closet thing to family people of their skill set has. She worries. He wants to tell her that worrying will get him burned alive.

V

Sleep is becoming more difficult. The dreams only started after Loki's specter's control was broken (disconnected). The itching was under his skin and he dreaded every chirp and call from his phone. Paranoia that Fury was going to use S.H.E.I.L.D. on the front of wave that couldn't be fought, themselves . He was worried Fury was going to push them out of the safe zone.

He longed for the cool bright blue of the cube. At least then the madness wasn't caused by his own ghosts.

VI

Fuck Budapest. He couldn't even remember it any more.

VII

Darcy Lewis's hair is dark and spills across his bed. Her lips as red as scarlet. **S**omehow **i**n every respons**e** rippling ac**r**oss he**r** skin, **a** tease of a lust echoed back at him.

He buried himself deeper into her. Swallowing each sigh and gasp, his fingers bruising the pale skin underneath his greedy body. Her eyes widening as he growled and nipped at her red lips that curved against his so well.

If he had to suffer through flashes of frigid metal in his hands, he's more than willing to warm them against the fever he elicits from within her. Even if she is the closet physical thing to desire for an imagined ghost of his torn apart psyche.

VIII

"Ever have a moment when you weren't sure if you are in the right place," Coulson just took a sip of his coffee. The angle he had chosen to observe the agent(air ducts didn't allow things to sneak up out and in you) gave him a view of how he had stretched himself out to relieve pressure from the damage inflicted on him.

"Clint, you should go to medical."

He wasn't sure Coulson knew what it was like to have his brain stolen and played with.

IX

She was crying. Tears streaming down cheeks and big brown eyes swollen from misery. He looked at her as she held the unconscious blond man's hand. It was so tiny as it grasped.

He felt guilty. He didn't see.

He didn't see the flash that knocked down Thor. His 'brother' stuttering to a stop and turning red eye stare on the creature that took away the one thing he could continuously use as a catharsis to prove his own worth.

Clint exhaled slowly when he saw that bigger hand flex and grab the tiny one already in it. He wondered if when the god slept, if he was haunted by those red eyes.

X

Dreams were fleeting. Nightmares stay. That was the lesson he learned. He was starting to wonder when he would be shot out of the sky.

XI

Heat followed him around. Crawling under his skin as he pushed. Pushed himself in combat, in everyday life, just so he could keep up the banter, the snark, just to keep his own core intact.

Target practice became even longer. The bow still part of his body. He picked up a rifle the one day, hit every mark dead on. He could do it, would use it if he had to, but it lead down that deep dark path of children that could be _something so much more_.

Steve watched him. Clapped a hand on his shoulder. Clint breathed out. It felt the first exhale in months.

XII

He was surviving, the ghosts of former (imaginary) comrades fading. He was unmade and slowly put himself back together.

_Sargent Doyle. _

He wasn't real. At least not real for here.

XIII

He still kept an eye out. You never could tell what element (beast monster nightmare madman) they would be fighting against at any near point in the future.

He didn't take those months drowning (falling from his perch. His eyes gouged out) for granted. He hinted to Stark about the concept of a virus. He could see his mind whirling in the off kilter way it functioned.

His iron suit may have 'privatized' peace but he wasn't positive how well it protected against biological warfare.

Clint still traced pale skin and lips (red red red), swallowed the moans given to him. Threaded his hands into dark hair. He stopped answering her sighs with desperate moans of his own. The shadows stopped lurking finally.

At least now, he knows he's not going to be torn apart and burned alive.


End file.
